It's easy to dismiss Africa as a place that is, at best, a provider of commodities, land and labour. A closer look shows that the continent is innovative and offers a lot more opportunities.

The Chinese and South African governments, led by presidents Xi Jingping and Jacob Zuma, cement ties during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Reuters/Wang Zhao/Pool January 11, 2016

China's Confucius Institutes given foreigners a chance to learn more about the country. Africa must be careful that its universities' partnerships with Confucius Institutes don't create dependency.

The Nairobi-Thika highway is being built by China Wuyi, Sinohydro and Shengeli Engineering Construction, and is funded by Kenya, China and the African Development Bank.
Reuters/Thomas MukoyaDecember 2, 2015

There is a new potential coloniser on South Africa's linguistic block. From 2016, Mandarin will be taught in schools – and this will see African languages bumped even further down the pecking order.

Farmers beat the stalks of sweet wormwood trees to extract the leaves during harvesting in rural China, The plant contains artemisinin, the drug which won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
epa/Michael ReynoldsOctober 8, 2015